Cravaack targets climate change education funding

WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack has introduced legislation to cut off funding to a National Science Foundation program that funds climate change education.

Cravaack, a first-term Republican from the 8th District, introduced an amendment to a science funding bill that would cut $10 million from the NSF's Climate Change Education program. The amendment was adopted by on a 238-188 vote in the House on Thursday.

The Climate Change Education program was originally introduced in President Obama’s 2012 budget. In a statement, Cravaack called it a “duplicative program costing us money we simply do not have.”

“As someone who supports education, amid a deficit of $1.3 trillion and debt of $15.7 trillion, a redundant global warming program can hardly be justified,” Cravaack said in a statement. “The recently created CCE duplicates the already inherent ability of the NSF to fund worthy proposals through its rigorous, peer-reviewed process.”

The amendment drew criticism from environmental activists. The education advocacy director for the National Wildlife Foundation told the Duluth News Tribune that the amendment is “an effort to keep our children in the dark about the science of climate change. It’s an attack on our children’s future.”

Cravaack told Minnesota Public Radio that he considers himself a skeptic of global warming. While running for election in 2010, he called climate change science “bunk.”

Climate change science is bunk. You vote them in and you get what you pay for. We've been claiming and denying for decades now. Evidence is presented and ignored, antidotal stories and news stories abound and yet we can't afford to educate the children about their future. Intelligence is no longer hip and science is bunk. Who knew?

To say that most American political discourse takes place at the intellectual level of baboons would be an insult to baboons. Baboons are capable of handling two-factor reasoning problems: if I eat all the bananas now, I'll have none left for later; better eat enough to quell my hunger now, but leave some for later. Welcome to the world of the budget choices you need to make, when you refuse under any circumstances to raise taxes.

A couple of weeks ago, the Defense Department announced that the F-35 program's procurement costs had increased by $17 billion. This is partly because the developer has been unable to finalize the jet on time, leading to expensive slowdowns. The actual production cost per plane of the cheapest version is $83.4m. So if the program had a fixed budget and the higher costs led to lower purchases, that might mean buying about 210 fewer F-35s, ie 2,233 rather than 2,443. But fortunately, by slashing food stamps for millions of poor Americans during the most stressful economic hardship since the 1930s, we can avoid such painful decisions.

I would like to ask Mr. Cravaack; In your opinion, how many people should we remove from food stamps to buy 2301 instead of 2300 F-35 fighters?

"climate change education" sounds like "climate change propaganda". Cravaack is not a stupid person but in his comments and this legislative position, he reveals what it means to be willfully, and stubbornly ignorant, much like his Senatorial colleague, James Inhofe. That such highly placed elected officials should be able to claim themselves "skeptics" and opponents of education of science because it teaches what they choose to deny is saddening and depressing.